Her marriage may be on the rocks and her Bollywood career in the doldrums after Ek Thi Daayan where she unwittingly played herself, but Konkona Sen Sharma is definitely keeping busy. She has a Bengali film called Shesher Kobita, based on a Rabindranath Tagore story, but that’s opposite Rahul Bose, not much different from playing a witch. Meanwhile, she’s been also approached to play a prostitute in Ankush Bhatt’s Kamathipura but she’s apparently uncomfortable doing the role. Surely it’s a step up from playing a witch and a whole flight up from being paired with Rahul?
Anyhow, the 15th Mumbai Film Festival has announced an illustrious list of jurors and Ms Sen Sharma is amongst them. Heading the International Competition jury as the president will be director Bruce Beresford, whose 1989 film Driving Miss Daisy won the Oscar for the Best Film. He was also nominated for Best Director in 1984 for Tender Mercies. Rubbing shoulders with him and Konkona will be legendary French screen siren Nathalie Baye, star of Une Liaison Pornographique. Rounding up the jury is Japanese critic-turned-director Masato Harada (Return).
The India Gold 2013 Competition section jury boasts of Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation) heading the Jury panel as President. Joining him on the jury is Siddiq Barmak (Osama). Journeyman director of mediocre British television programmes Waris Hussein gets a free trip to Mumbai to be on the jury but his unfortunate selection is mode than made up by the presence of Jill Bilcock, editor of Moulin Rouge and of Paani – if that long gestating and jinxed project by the ageing Shekhar Kapur ever gets off the ground. Roger Garcia, the executive director of the prestigious Hong Kong International Film Festival is also on the jury.
The Mumbai festival runs from October 17-24 and will be held at Metro Cinema and Liberty Cinemas as the main festival venues and Cinemax, Andheri (West) as the satellite venue. May we suggest a Vashi centric festival from next year with South Mumbai and Andheri as satellite venues? Much more convenient for all concerned, especially Pune-kars – and in return, we can hold the Pune Film Festival in Elephanta. Righto, Cineswami is off to Hyderabad, Sindh, for the first Telangana/Seemandhra film festival. And it is time for my medication. See you on the other side.
Source: http://www.bollywoodlife.com/news-gossip/15th-mumbai-film-festival-konkona-sen-sharma-on-jury-alongside-international-heavy-hitters/